A Match Made For Freedom
by Sleepy Lotus
Summary: AU, sometime around the present Jack is captain of a ship, and Elizabeth is an heiress on a mission. Their lives become inextricably intertwined on their own quests for freedom. JackElizabeth


-1A/N: I'm intending the chapters of this fic to bounce around different times in Jack and Elizabeth's lives together, kind of a series of very short one shots strung together. I'll try to keep the chaps around a the same time frame, but each will probably be a diff point in their lives. Eventually, it will make a whole, honest. :)

Part I

**Mr. Gibbs**

Those two, they was a pair from the very beginning. Maybe not always a love match, but a match just the same. Neither of 'em knew what the other was in for, the day she and that boy Will boarded our boat.

The crew noticed the first day of our voyage, an' maybe even the boy. That easy banter between those two, they was fightin' from the beginning. Little did any of us know, they'd be fightin' to the end.

**Jack Sparrow**

She walked into my life the same way she walks into anything else: no mercy, irresistible charm. I saw the pretty face but didn't catch the bite till later. _I need a ship_ she said, sitting down next to me at the bar. A bit of a whelp tagged along with her; pretty boy an' muscles enough, but even at first glance the pair didn't seem right.

There was a fire in her eyes that drew me in, and instantly I wanted something of her. Didn't know what yet, just something.

_I've got one _I answered.

_It's a dangerous mission_.

_All the better_.

Cash in my hand and we were off to bigger water, off to find her precious whales. I didn't give a damn about the big brutes, but there was a certainty about the girl that told me we'd find trouble somewhere in the water. An adventure, a fight. There didn't seem much else to me worth living for.

**Elizabeth**

I didn't like the man much in the beginning, and it waxed and waned as our time together went on. He was tall, handsome, with a pair of dark eyes that seemed to bore right through me. Braids and trinkets wound in his dreadlocks, he looked like a pirate with that red bandana he never seemed to go without. Probably not trustworthy at all. _He seems like a ruffian _Will had whispered in my ear, shortly after we made the deal for the boat and crew. I agreed, and he was exactly what we needed.

Time would prove me right, perhaps to Will's chagrin.

_A bit of an odd match for you, _Jack had said with that pirate grin, leaning up against the railing, glancing at Will across ship. I noticed a tattoo on his forearm, a sparrow flying into the horizon. Fitting.

_Perhaps _I'd agreed. But Will had been there from nearly the very beginning of my life, maybe he would be there until the end. My indifference to the matter unnerved me a bit, before the feeling sank back down to the depths of my heart. _But he takes good pictures. _

_You really willing to risk your life for this, love? _Somewhere along the voyage, I'd earned this little nickname with him. I would be damned to admit I liked it; he infuriated me. The way he called me _love, _the way he looked at me, the way that mouth curled in a smirk as though he already knew all the little thoughts I kept locked away in my head.

I liked it.

**Jack Sparrow**

There was a certain sangfroid in her tone that chilled and impressed me. _They'll be shootin' harpoons right over your pretty head _I warned her. She didn't seem to care.

_Life's too painful to live it for long, _she explained. _I'd rather live a short, free life, than a long one controlled by **them**._

Ah yes, them. _They _were everyone and no one. That force of people and laws that seemed to wiggle their way into any crevice of one's life if they could. With a new respect, I studied her as I had for the umpteenth time this voyage. The girl had a timeless beauty, an indomitable soul. I would keep that moment forever in my mind; the sea breeze whipping her sun bleached hair wildly around her, her jaw set with resolve and her eyes on the horizon. There was a certain familiarity to her I found hard to ignore. Impossible, I know.

_You know we were born in a wrong age, love. We were meant to be pirates. _

Her lips curled in a bewitching smile.

_Yes, we were._

**Will Turner**

We had the determination and her father's money; what was to stop us from going? I would admit it; she'd always been the leader. The orchestrator, the planner. She always took us to such interesting places, I'd never had a problem following before, camera in hand.

We had a system. It was perfect. We were a team. She was the activist, I was the recorder. We sent the pictures to the media, spread the word all over the world of what _they _were doing to the planet.

She hated _them _with a passion. Every damn one of _them. Nothing spoils life like a good government_, she'd say. The expression on her lovely face scared me sometimes, when she spoke of how _they _quelled freedom at every chance.

Apparently, _he _felt the same.

I wanted to kill _him_ when he volunteered.

_You need to take pictures, Will _she'd said. _We need someone to drive the boat. _

She turned those brown eyes up to him, suggestion without further words. Jack offered almost instantly. The man was curious about her, I could tell.

In a way, I couldn't blame him. Everyone seemed to want to know a little bit more about Elizabeth. That fiery woman who sometimes burned too bright for this world. I often had nightmares about the day that flame would burn itself out.

I'd never minded before, when the power of her soul threatened to burn _me_.


End file.
